In conventional clothes lines assemblies, it has always been bothersome to secure each garment onto the clothes line with clothes pins. The clothes must be hung on the lines and then secured manually with clothes pins, moreover these clothes pins must also be removed manually and stored away when the dry garments are taken in. Many inventions have tried to remedy these inconveniences:
U.S. Pat. No. 2,407,387 Seymour, Sep. 10, 1946, shows a unwinding/winding apparatus designed to allow clothing to be inserted into the weaves of three ropes specially braided together. Though this combination removes the need for clothes pins, it is however quite complex for a task that, in itself, is not complicated. Moreover the presented embodiment--FIG. 1--requires that the user moves the apparatus, by handle 8, along the line.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,676,711 Jardim, Apr. 07, 1954, illustrates a self-pinning clothes line that features a standard line wrapped with a cover featuring openings 11--FIG. 1--that allow the pinning of clothes caught between the cover and the line without any clothes pins. However the pinning action requires some pulling of the wrapping cover by the user, unlike Seymour's, which performs the pinning automatically.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,815,864 Alexander, Dec. 10, 1957, shows a clothes line fitted with permanently attached clothes pins, which are normally closed but are opened when passing over a prying element located around a section of the pulley, on the side of the user. This system regroups the abilities of both previous patents, that is clothes pins incorporated to the line and a system for opening them with no actions other than the moving of the line. However the apparatus needs the addition of a new pulley, which would prove relatively costly and bothersome to install. Also, any misalignment of the pins will cause the system to block or to fail to open a pin that would have passed beside the prying element.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,656,630 Miguel, Apr. 18, 1972, illustrates an "endless" clothes line with a triple pulley and clothespins and a mechanism for the automatic pinning and releasing of the clothes. However to do this it necessitates three pulleys on the user's side, a retaining frame assembly and a long clothes line. All of this renders the system relatively costly to implement and prone to malfunction.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,519,509 Doyle, May 28, 1985, shows a double pulley arrangement also embodying a predisposed set of pins such as Miguel's and necessitating an auxiliary line.
CAN 832296 Lund (Laird) Jan. 20, 1970, illustrates a clothes clip integrated in a clothes line; though quite simple and practical it provides no means for automatic opening and closure of the clothes pins. The disavantages of the system are that the clothes line has to be cut in order to insert the assembly and that the surfaces of the assembly has few teeth to trap the clothes in place on the line; the method can damage articles when the assembly is clamped shut or opened. It also needs a greater force to pull apart and release the clothes in the assembly.